Lorna Finlayson
Biographic Data
| ID | 129712 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lorna Finlayson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lorna |
| FAMILY NAME | Finlayson |
| SIGNATURE | FINLAYSON L |
| AFFILIATIONS | King’s College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 60 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
On Lesser Evilism
The standard argument for backing hawkish centre-left parties remains the ‘lesser evil’. Lorna Finlayson interrogates that line of reasoning and the assumptions on which it rests: crude consequentialism, narrow minded electoralism and covering up the realities of Starmer’s Labour
If This Isn’t Racism, What Is? The Politics of the Philosophy of Immigration
Alison Jaggar (2020) recommends a radical break with a dominant approach to the philosophy of immigration shared by both liberal cosmopolitans and liberal nationalists. This paper is intended as an exploration of Jaggar’s conclusions and as an attempt to carry them further. Building on her critique, I argue that the characteristic questions asked by both cosmopolitans and nationalists appear inappropriate when seen against the political reality o…
Rules of The Game
The problem is not just the economy, stupid, it's economic ‘science’
The Third Shift
In the past few years, the situation and experiences of women in academic philosophy—and in academia more broadly—have received unprecedented attention. For feminist philosophers, a growing awareness of the problems facing women in the discipline is something to be welcomed. Nevertheless, this article raises some serious concerns about the framework within which these problems are often analyzed and addressed. I argue that the currently prevalent…
With radicals like these, who needs conservatives? Doom, gloom, and realism in political theory
This paper attempts to get some critical distance on the increasingly fashionable issue of realism in political theory. Realism has an ambiguous status: it is sometimes presented as a radical challenge to the status quo; but it also often appears as a conservative force, aimed at clipping the wings of more ‘idealistic’ political theorists. I suggest that what we might call ‘actually existing realism’ is indeed a conservative presence in political…
Political is Political
Nobody should really have to point out that political philosophy is political. Yet in this highly original and provocative book Lorna Finlayson argues that in fact it is necessary to do so. Offering a critique of mainstream liberal political philosophy through close, critical engagement with a series of specific debates and arguments, Finlayson analyzes the way in which apparently neutral methodological devices such as “charitable interpretation”…
On Mountains and Molehills
As Rosen observes, there is a long tradition of interest in the perceived problem of why the oppressed appear to accept or acquiesce in their own oppressionsee e.g. de la Boétie (2008).This question remains a central one for contemporary theorists of oppression (see e.g
How to Screw Things with Words
Since its influential rendering by Rae Langton in her 1993 paper, “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts,” the “silencing argument” against pornography has become the subject of a lively debate that continues to this day. My intention in this paper is not to join in the existing debate, but to give a critical overview of it. In its current form, I suggest, it is going nowhere (and has been en route for too long already). Yet the silencing argument, I …
Preachers and propagandists
This paper begins from an examination of a very short and now largely forgotten article by John Plamenatz, entitled ‘The Use of Political Theory’ (1960). Section 1 outlines Plamenatz's vision of the role of political theory, whilst Section 2 relates this vision to some themes of contemporary political philosophy: in particular, the ‘realist’ critique of mainstream liberalism. Without unequivocally endorsing ‘realism’—in any case an extremely ill-…
Death Camps and Designer Dresses
With radicals like these, who needs conservatives? Doom, gloom, and realism in political theory
This paper attempts to get some critical distance on the increasingly fashionable issue of realism in political theory. Realism has an ambiguous status: it is sometimes presented as a radical challenge to the status quo; but it also often appears as a conservative force, aimed at clipping the wings of more ‘idealistic’ political theorists. I suggest that what we might call ‘actually existing realism’ is indeed a conservative presence in political…
On Mountains and Molehills
As Rosen observes, there is a long tradition of interest in the perceived problem of why the oppressed appear to accept or acquiesce in their own oppressionsee e.g. de la Boétie (2008).This question remains a central one for contemporary theorists of oppression (see e.g
The Third Shift
In the past few years, the situation and experiences of women in academic philosophy—and in academia more broadly—have received unprecedented attention. For feminist philosophers, a growing awareness of the problems facing women in the discipline is something to be welcomed. Nevertheless, this article raises some serious concerns about the framework within which these problems are often analyzed and addressed. I argue that the currently prevalent…
How to Screw Things with Words
Since its influential rendering by Rae Langton in her 1993 paper, “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts,” the “silencing argument” against pornography has become the subject of a lively debate that continues to this day. My intention in this paper is not to join in the existing debate, but to give a critical overview of it. In its current form, I suggest, it is going nowhere (and has been en route for too long already). Yet the silencing argument, I …
On Lesser Evilism
The standard argument for backing hawkish centre-left parties remains the ‘lesser evil’. Lorna Finlayson interrogates that line of reasoning and the assumptions on which it rests: crude consequentialism, narrow minded electoralism and covering up the realities of Starmer’s Labour
Death Camps and Designer Dresses
Death Camps and Designer Dresses
Preachers and propagandists
This paper begins from an examination of a very short and now largely forgotten article by John Plamenatz, entitled ‘The Use of Political Theory’ (1960). Section 1 outlines Plamenatz's vision of the role of political theory, whilst Section 2 relates this vision to some themes of contemporary political philosophy: in particular, the ‘realist’ critique of mainstream liberalism. Without unequivocally endorsing ‘realism’—in any case an extremely ill-…
How to Screw Things with Words
Since its influential rendering by Rae Langton in her 1993 paper, “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts,” the “silencing argument” against pornography has become the subject of a lively debate that continues to this day. My intention in this paper is not to join in the existing debate, but to give a critical overview of it. In its current form, I suggest, it is going nowhere (and has been en route for too long already). Yet the silencing argument, I …
Political is Political
Nobody should really have to point out that political philosophy is political. Yet in this highly original and provocative book Lorna Finlayson argues that in fact it is necessary to do so. Offering a critique of mainstream liberal political philosophy through close, critical engagement with a series of specific debates and arguments, Finlayson analyzes the way in which apparently neutral methodological devices such as “charitable interpretation”…
On Mountains and Molehills
As Rosen observes, there is a long tradition of interest in the perceived problem of why the oppressed appear to accept or acquiesce in their own oppressionsee e.g. de la Boétie (2008).This question remains a central one for contemporary theorists of oppression (see e.g
With radicals like these, who needs conservatives? Doom, gloom, and realism in political theory
This paper attempts to get some critical distance on the increasingly fashionable issue of realism in political theory. Realism has an ambiguous status: it is sometimes presented as a radical challenge to the status quo; but it also often appears as a conservative force, aimed at clipping the wings of more ‘idealistic’ political theorists. I suggest that what we might call ‘actually existing realism’ is indeed a conservative presence in political…
The Third Shift
In the past few years, the situation and experiences of women in academic philosophy—and in academia more broadly—have received unprecedented attention. For feminist philosophers, a growing awareness of the problems facing women in the discipline is something to be welcomed. Nevertheless, this article raises some serious concerns about the framework within which these problems are often analyzed and addressed. I argue that the currently prevalent…
The problem is not just the economy, stupid, it's economic ‘science’
If This Isn’t Racism, What Is? The Politics of the Philosophy of Immigration
Alison Jaggar (2020) recommends a radical break with a dominant approach to the philosophy of immigration shared by both liberal cosmopolitans and liberal nationalists. This paper is intended as an exploration of Jaggar’s conclusions and as an attempt to carry them further. Building on her critique, I argue that the characteristic questions asked by both cosmopolitans and nationalists appear inappropriate when seen against the political reality o…
Rules of The Game
On Lesser Evilism
The standard argument for backing hawkish centre-left parties remains the ‘lesser evil’. Lorna Finlayson interrogates that line of reasoning and the assumptions on which it rests: crude consequentialism, narrow minded electoralism and covering up the realities of Starmer’s Labour
Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Politics (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Law (5 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (5 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works)